Wednesday, June 20, 2018

The police have arrested the right-wing Hindutva extremists who were involved in hatching the conspiracy to kill journalist Gauri Lankesh.

Lankesh was murdered a few months ago. But the terrorist module had several other names including those of rationalists on their hit-list. The masterminds were Pune-based engineer Amol Kale and Parshuram Waghmare.

Along with other fanatics, they planned and murdered Lankesh. Apart from Waghmare and Kale, the other accused include KT Naveen Kumar, Sujith Kumar alias Praveen, Manohar Dundappa Edave alias Manoj and Amit Degwekar alias Pradeep Mahajan.

Edave, another accused, who is in police custody told police that he updated Kale and Dada, who is still absconding, about Lankesh's movement. Along with KT Naveen Kumar, Yadave had followed her.

Naveen Kumar's wife told SIT that her husband had bought a pistol and offered his blood to it. She told the police she had gone with her husband to Mangalore and when next day there were reports about the murder, she spoke to him but he didn't react.

Sources said that Naveen had met Praveen and other associates at Belagavi city hotel on November 20 to discuss the plan to eliminate KS Bhagwan, the noted writer. He admitted names of Kale, Parveen, Amit Digwekar and another person to a forest near Mandya to practice shooting.

The police found 22 cell phones in his possession and 21 in Kale's possession. Amil Kale, who livres in Pune, has been associated with Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS), a radical Hindutva group in the past.

Waghmare had confessed that he shot Lankesh. Kalue and Amit had trained Parshuram at Satara in Maharashtra and Belagavi in Karnataka. When asked why he killed her, he would tell interrogators that he did it for the 'sake of Hinduism'.

Waghmare had been arrested in the past with five Ram Sene members for unfurling a Pakistani flag outside tehsildar office at Sindagi. Kale had recruited and trained Waghmare. They had once made a bid on her life and failed. On the second occasion, the assassins pumped multiple bullets, killing her on the spot.

A diary has been recovering and there are names of several rationalists including theatre personality Girish Karnad in it. Other names on the hit-list include politician-litterateur B.T. Lalitha Naik, pontiff Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swamiji of Nidumamidi Mutt and rationalist C.S. Dwarakanath.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

This is a photograph from Burhanpur, a historic town in South Western part of Madhya Pradesh.

A group of local Hindus went to the Jama Masjid and wished Muslims 'Eid Mubarak'.

They offered 'sherbet' to Muslims who came to offer the special prayers on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr.

Now, these are gestures we witness all over India but not every such incident is mentioned. Muslims offer sherbet to 'Kanwariyas'. Sikhs, Christians too do join festivities of other communities.

The members of the Hindu Seva Samiti offered 400 lites of sherbet to Muslims at the Jama Masjid near Lal Bagh in the town. The office-bearer, Rakesh Chauksey, said that they celebrate Hindu festivals and speak for Hindus' rights but also join people belonging to other communities in celebrating their events. This is the photo courtesy Hindi newspaper, Dainik Bhaskar.

[Harmony exists all around us but is often ignored. Instead, stories of hate, discord and communalism get spread easily.

There are a million examples in our daily lives across India but they don't get promoted, hence, news of hate and discord gets heard more. Let's change it, now.

This is a small attempt to change it through Communal Harmony Project]

For reading similar reports on this blog, Click the link HERE and also find out more about Communal Harmony Project]

If you are copying a paragraph, part of any article from anindianmuslim.com on your site [or book] or using an excerpt from a post on this blog, kindly give credit in the form of the name of this blog and its link. Thanks.